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Cross Creek Engineering| Great Meeting at Cheney's last month | Richard Abler |
) A
nice, sunny day in the midst of weeks of rain greeted CGRSers for last month's
meeting at the Cheney's. Dave & Judy had the railroad in peak condition
for our meeting. The trains ran smoothly throughout the afternoon.Dave has added a few things since we were last there: He's using roofing material as the roadways in his village. ) He
constructed a "chain-link" fence to surround the Marine Corp
artillery memorial. He constructed the fence out of nylon screen and 1/8 inch
wood dowels. Looks great!The meeting ran smoothly too and we managed to discuss a few business issues when we weren't watching the trains: 1) I passed around a signup sheet for the Rose Festival. Most time were filled and there was a good group of folks signed up for setup on Friday evening and teardown on Sunday night. 2) Shirley Green brought along a write-up on the history of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. This is now a part of the CGRS lending library. 3) Dan Hill bought in a small push broom which he modified to be an effective track cleaning broom. Very interesting. 4) Doug Clark talked about the rail raising at his home scheduled for June 2nd. He says he's ready to go. All we need now is a break in the weather. 5) I mentioned the Rail & Steam Fest at Carillon Park in Dayton. Several CGRSers were planning to attend. 6) We asked for a show of hands for the national convention in Seattle. Several CGRSers are planning to attend that event as well. ) 7)
Dave Cheney showed a sample he created of a "blue flag" which
railroads used to place on the track to let crews know to not disturb any
rolling stock protected by the flag. Dave has created a couple dozen of these
little gems.After the business part of the meeting Bill Logan reviewed some basic issues confronting the garden railroader: the "scale vs. gauge" issue and the choice of track now on the market. The bonsai clinic scheduled for the day had to be canceled at the last minute due to a family emergency. Our thanks to Dave & Judy for all of the drinks and goodies they set out for us and for being such great hosts! |
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| Think of "Proportion" rather than "Scale" | Bob Collins |
| One
topic that is surely to start an argument or raise a lot of questions is that
of "scale" as it applies to our hobby of garden railroading. Bill
Logan alluded to it in his clinic at our last meeting. Except Bill chose
to call it proportion or percentage; and I heartily agree. When one says that they are modeling in 1:24 scale or 1:32 scale, or 1:20 scale, what they are actually saying is that they are using equipment, buildings, people, trains that are really 1/24th, or 1/32nd, or 1/20th the size of the real thing. In retrospect, this really made sense as I was attempting to design our layout. I was on a roll, everything was going to be 1:24th of the real thing. Buildings, people, trains, plants, the whole enchilada. Even the size of the area was going to be 18x36 feet. Man, I was humming. That was until I was attempting to scale a lake that was about 1.5 miles by 1 mile! Talk about getting a new eraser!! That was one of the challenges. The other came when my yard manager decided that everything was just going to take up too much real estate. Well, I had to start from scratch and work within an area of 12X24 feet. Meanwhile, we had been to Jim Shell's house a couple of times for club meetings and in one of his clinics mentioned that he built temporary structures of cardboard and set them on his layout and adjusted the size until he felt that they looked right, before proceeding to build them in their final form. At the time, this piece of information was filed away in the catacombs of the gray matter that fills the space between my ears. After I started construction of some of my buildings, it wasn't until they were completed and put in place that I started scrutinizing just how they looked in relationship (or proportion) to the other components of our new "empire." This was never more evident after I had ordered some plans for a new building that I was looking forward to constructing. I decided to use poster board and constructed this building to put on the layout and see how it would fit into the scheme of things. One should remember that poster board is considerably less expensive than a 6 ft length of redwood or cedar. The building will never see the light of day in our town in its suggested "scale!" It overshadowed everything else. I have not had the time to resize it to a more acceptable size. Then the proverbial light came on. This was what Jim was doing. If it didn't look right, then something was definitely wrong and it had to be resized or scrapped altogether. This was reinforced as I was attempting to use the information from some articles that Jim had given me about storage buildings for ice that were used, before refrigeration was invented, in the old ice boxes that our parents may have been familiar with. As a matter of fact, I ended up using the dimension given for the end of the building as the total length dimension of the building in its final size after I finished proportioning everything out. Also, it should be mentioned that the
yard manager decided that the building was too tall and would block part of
the view of the lake. The height dimension had to be one that was proportional
(there's that word again) to the rest of the town, etc. |
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| The Plant Manager | Barbara Abler |
| Always
Alive Always alive is a great name for a common plant that most everyone knows - but not by that English name. You may know it as Houseleek or Hen-and-chicks. Taxonomists know it as Sempervivum. This old-fashioned (and common) plant dates back to ancient times. The Romans grew them in pots. They live up to their Latin name - (semper) always (vivum) alive - because of their tolerance to drought. These succulent rosettes are also evergreen. Sempervivum tectorum, the common house-leek, has been grown for centuries on house roofs as a protection against lightning and fire, a big worry since roofs were made of thatch. You can still see them growing on roofs in Europe and this practice is making a come back. Roof plantings are even making inroads in the U.S., especially on flat roofs, as a means of keeping them cooler. There are over 40 species of semps. They are native to Europe, northern Africa and western Asia. There are hundreds of different cultivars as the result of hybridization. As with hostas and other genera that are easy to hybridize, there sometimes seems to be no distinguishable difference between different cultivars to the non-aficionado. There are differences although they can sometimes be very subtle. There are differences in size. The largest rosettes can be near 9 inches across while the smallest may be less than 1/4 inch in diameter. There are also differences in color but the range of colors is not great. There are light green, grayish green, all shades of green and reddish to burgundy colored leaves. There are some where the base of the leaf is green and the tip red and the converse. The color in winter can be dramatically different from the color in summer, with winter colors being darker and more reddish. Semps do bloom; flower colors can vary from whites to pinks through reds. For the superstitious, it is considered to be bad luck for sempervivum to bloom. And it is bad luck - for the plant - because semps are monocarpic. That's the botanical term meaning the rosette dies after it flowers. Obviously, semps are grown for their foliage and not for their flowers. There are differences in the shape of the rosettes and the leaves. Some have open rosettes and in others the leaves curve in. Some have sharply pointed tips to the leaves and others are more rounded. Some leaves look glaucous, i.e. powdery, others are hairy and still others are clean-shaven. My absolute favorite species is S. arachnoideum, the cobweb houseleek. Very fine hairs grow on the tips of the leaves and stretch from leaf to leaf so that the top of the rosette looks as if it has a cobweb across it. Some cultivars are more heavily webbed than others. I think they are all delightful. The common name Hen-and-chicks comes from the manner in which most semps produce offsets, i.e., little clones, that snuggle up to the parent rosette like a chick to a mother hen in the nest. The chicks are attached to the hen by stolons, the botanical equivalent of an umbilical cord. The chicks are produced in spring during the most active growth period. The stolon can be severed and the chick can be replanted to start a new family. Semps in general want full sun.
The rosettes are not as tight in shade. They want well-drained soil, either
sandy or gritty, otherwise they will eventually rot. Most are listed as
being hardy to USDA Zone 5. Although they will not be lush if you
forget to water them, they will stay alive. |
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| Successful Display at the Rose Festival | Richard Abler |
) CGRS ran trains at the annual Rose Festival earlier this month - the weekend of June 9 and 10. As usual, the trains were a big hit, especially with the younger set. I noticed some youngsters dragged their parents and grandparents by several times before leaving the park. In many cases it didnšt take a whole lot of persuasion on the part of the youngsters. The adults wanted to see the trains too. The Rose Festival organizers surely want CGRS to be there. I noticed in the press releases in the local papers that "Columbus Garden Railway Society" is mentioned by name, whereas the other vendors are referred to only as "other vendors." ) CGRS members who staffed the information booth and ran trains were: David & Judy Cheney, Doug & Ginny Clark, Bob Collins, Bob & Harriet Dana, Bob Duggan, Jack & Cecil Easterday, Randy and Robbie Ketcham, Jim & Barb Kimmel, Bill Logan, Bill & Diane Lott, Richard Voit, Peter Wine, and Richard Abler. ) Many thanks to the setup crew for coming up with a last minute, impromptu trestle for wide radius curves that allowed us to run long passenger cars on the display railroad. Thanks also to the weatherman for providing a weekend without rain, the first after a long and wet spring. As for next year, we're not sure about what the "train garden" will look like. The blacktopped area around the shelter house is slated for renovation, and it is likely the train garden and some of the other gardens at the shelter house will be completely redone. It will be interesting to see what they come up with. |
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| Successful Rail Raising in Delaware | Richard Abler |
) Oh
it was a wet one at the Clarks' in Delaware for the June 2nd rail raising.
Standing water in parts of the back yard and soggy turf elsewhere made for a
difficult time for all. We should have known ahead the weather would be bad -
same weekend as the Memorial golf tournament at Muirfield.However, the crew managed to get quite a bit done anyway. It helped that Doug Clark had done his homework and had "sub assembled" sections of track and prestained the 2x6 lumber for the track roadbed. Doug had also pre-built two long railroad bridges. We worked through the showers and wind in the morning. However, when the afternoon electrical storm and downpour hit, all worked stopped. Nonetheless, quite a bit was accomplished. The roadbed for most of the outer loop of track was in place by the time the weather halted progress. The CGRS volunteers helping out with
the rail raising included: Glenn Babka, Dave Cheney, Doug Clark, Bob Collins,
Bob Dana, Bob Duggan, Peter Wine, and |
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| Deadline for next issue | Richard Abler |
| The deadline for the next issue is
Saturday, August 11th. Then on or about Thursday, August 16th we will meet to
get the news-letter ready for mailing. That involves folding, labeling,
stapling and stamping the newsletters. The meeting place is not as yet determined. All CGRS members are welcome to attend these "newsletter meetings." At these meetings CGRS business issues are discussed and decisions are made. Call ahead (614-885-0351) to let us know if you are coming and to confirm the date and place. [Ed.]. |
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